Jim Derksen, one of the founding members of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and the Manitoba Association of Persons with Disabilities, died at the age of 75 earlier this month, marking the end of a lifetime of tireless activism. Derksen, who used a wheelchair after contracting polio as a child in the late 1950s, grew up in a time when there was no accessible transportation, when children with disabilities did not have access to regular schooling, and when his rights it was not enshrined in the Canadian Charter. He didn’t let it stand, said Derksen’s longtime friend Laurie Beachell. “Jim has been a champion throughout his life and has convinced many that our challenge is to create inclusive and accessible communities, and he has done so with great passion, with great knowledge and with a gentle steadfastness that brought people to create change that was necessary,” he told Janet Stewart on CBC Winnipeg News at 6 on Thursday. “Jim made people understand that the problem was not within the individual, but … in the way we structure our society, with the built environment, with people’s biases and prejudices.” Jim Derksen is pictured with his dog. The disability rights activist died this month. (Jim Derksen/Facebook) Derksen was instrumental in enshrining disability rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the time, he was working with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, but was seconded to a federal committee to advocate for inclusion in the justice rights section of the Charter. “In the early days they wanted to include only physical disability, not mental disability. Jim led that fight and said, ‘No, it has to be both,’” Bitchell said. “Jim was one of those characters who in a gentle way could bring people around.” In a not-so-gentle moment, Derksen followed then-Justice Minister Jean Chrétien into a bathroom to continue pressuring him at the 11th hour of the Charter’s drafting. “He won people over with the power of his intellect and the power of his arguments,” Bitchell said.
Accessible transportation
Derksen was at one point chair of the Winnipeg Taxi Board and advocated for accessible transit. He also lobbied against medical assistance in dying. Debbie Patterson, a Manitoba artist, founder of Shakespeare in the Ruins and a disability advocate in her own right, has been friends with Derksen for more than three decades. He says he was concerned Bill C7, which amended the criminal code to allow people to have doctor-assisted dying, was dangerous and could target vulnerable Canadians Jim Derksen opposed the federal government’s Bill C7, an act to amend the Criminal Code to pave the way for medical assistance in dying. He believed it was a dangerous bill that could target vulnerable Canadians. (Why us? Per Project Value/Facebook) “He believed very strongly that people with disabilities, our lives are devalued in society. People look at us and think our lives are not worth living. And because of that, we are more vulnerable to an early death,” he told a interview with Faith Fundal on CBC Manitoba’s Up to Speed on Thursday. “He was also very emphatic that without proper support to live well, it is unconscionable to provide support to die.”
“He is not ashamed of his disability”
Derksen was not only an advocate for disability rights, he was also a supportive friend. The two became close when Derksen asked why Patterson, who lives with multiple sclerosis, was limping one day. “She just became a mentor to me in terms of navigating life with a disability. As soon as she saw something going on, she was right there asking questions, helping me figure out what I needed to do,” Patterson said. Patterson says his raw and honest nature made her feel comfortable sharing anything with him. “He was so biased and vulnerable … he wasn’t ashamed of his disability. He wasn’t ashamed of the way his body worked, he wasn’t ashamed of his body at all. He was just very honest and vulnerable and that made me completely disarmed and comfortable to I share anything with him,” she said. Derksen was also a fan of the Winnipeg Folk Festival and if he hadn’t died, Bitchell said he would be at Birds Hill Provincial Park this weekend. He doesn’t know about a year that his friend has lost since the start of the music festival.
